We have only to refer to
the warnings uttered by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in order to realize the extent and
character of the forces that are destined to contest with God’s holy Faith. In
the darkest moments of His life, under ‘Abdu’l-Ḥamíd’s régime, when He stood ready
to be deported to the most inhospitable regions of Northern Africa, and at a
time when the auspicious light of the Bahá’í Revelation had only begun to break upon the West, He, in His
parting message to the cousin of the Báb, uttered these prophetic and ominous
words: “How great, how very great is the Cause! How very fierce the onslaught
of all the peoples and kindreds of the earth. Ere long shall the clamor of the
multitude throughout Africa, throughout America, the cry of the European and of
the Turk, the groaning of India and China, be heard from far and near. One and
all, they shall arise with all their power to resist His Cause. Then shall the
knights of the Lord, assisted by His grace from on high, strengthened by faith,
aided by the power of understanding, and reinforced by the legions of the
Covenant, arise and make manifest the truth of the verse: ‘Behold the confusion
that hath befallen the tribes of the defeated!’”
Stupendous
as is the struggle which His words foreshadow, they also testify to the
complete victory which the upholders of the Greatest Name
are destined eventually to achieve.
- Shoghi Effendi (From a letter dated 21
March 1930; ‘The World Order of Baha’u’llah’)
